Once in Pink. Once in Yellow.

Once in Pink. Once in Yellow.

It began, as these things often do, with a rebrand.

Audrey Crenshaw, Chairwoman Emeritus of nearly everything, had read a six-month-old issue of Cheshire Life in the GP waiting room and emerged with a vision.

She began referring to the Lower Tissington Allotments as Tissington Community Gardens. No vote. No notice. Just a name change—repeated, clipboard in hand, until it started to stick.

“It sounds more inviting,” she said. “Less cabbage. More culture.”

Not everyone agreed. So Audrey proposed making it official. And what better way than with a banner.

A vote was held. A motion passed. A banner ordered.

Maggie said nothing. But she noticed that no one asked the cabbages.

The first chalk mark appeared the following week.

Faint. Intentional.

On the low brick ledge by the compost bins: a looping spiral, just off-centre. Not quite art. Not quite random.

Maggie passed it twice before pausing. She didn’t touch it. Just looked. The dog sniffed, uninterested.

By Tuesday, there were more.

A triangle of dots on the shed door. A broken figure-eight by the gate latch. A backwards P on the watering-can stand.

Naturally, Audrey blamed hooligans.

“This is what happens when you let unsupervised expression roam free,” she said, brandishing a laminated notice:

THIS IS A GARDEN, NOT A CANVAS.

Reginald blamed the chess club. Netta suggested ley lines. Maggie sipped her tea and watched.

It was Nell she saw first. Standing by the herb bed, one toe absently nudging a half-faded glyph back into shape. Notebook under her arm. Spiral-bound. Grey.

Then J, a few days later—by the bench near Plot 3, fingers faintly pink. A stub of chalk poked from their jacket pocket. They didn’t meet her gaze. One hand hovered, then dropped.

By Friday, the symbols had shifted.

They were no longer random. A rhythm had emerged. One line extended another. A curl echoed last week’s spiral.

Maggie didn’t try to read them. She let them be.

The next morning, she found a pale blue chalk stub in the pocket of her coat.

She didn’t remember putting it there.

She walked to the compost bins early, before the others arrived. Stood where the first spiral had been.

The chalk stayed in her pocket.

She stood a little longer than she meant to, then went home.

By the next day, a new mark had appeared near the compost bin.

A small wave. A dot above it.

Once in pink. Once in yellow.

No commentary. Just reply.

Maggie noticed that her breathing changed. She said nothing.

Audrey pushed for CCTV. Reginald muttered about budget priorities. Netta brewed tea with rosemary and left an envelope of “calming herbs” in the suggestion box.

The banner declaring WELCOME TO TISSINGTON COMMUNITY GARDENS sagged slightly in the rain.

And the chalk kept coming.

Until it didn’t.

A thunderstorm swept through on Sunday. By Monday, the symbols were gone.

All but one.

In the allotment shed, tucked beside Maggie’s tin of twine and the dog’s emergency biscuit stash, lay a chalk stub.

Wrapped in a fig-bar wrapper. Folded once. No note.

Maggie turned it over in her palm.

Then left it there.

That night, she made tea she didn’t finish. Let the dog snore against her boots.

She opened the grey notebook—hardcover, a little warped where it once kissed the toaster—and began a new page.

Casefile #36: Once in Pink. Once in Yellow.
Observation: Chalk marks appeared, shifted, and were removed by weather. One remained.
Outcome: Left uncorrected.
Note: The allotments were renamed.

She tapped the page once.

Then closed the book.

Outside, the ivy brushed the shed—soft, steady.

Somewhere, someone laughed.

Maggie listened.